geraldine ferraro and geraldine called her to thank her for all the shoutouts for the campaign trail so i called geraldine back. her account is different than hers and geraldine ferraro sort of repeated me the first time so i was satisfied to put it in the book. but i did -- sarah palin has a lot of energy. i don't see how anyone can't like her. i watched her show the other night. i saw her stand up to the grizzly bear but she can tell some whoppers. that's all i can say. the woman does know some whoppers. .. >> well, i hope you enjoyed the evening and i'll go over and sign some books. [applause]

>> i thank everybody for coming. .. programmer offers are interviewed by guest hosts. this week former middleweight contender ruben hurricane carter talks about his wrongful conviction and the 20 years he spent in prison and his work for the innocent since his 1985 release. he talks with veteran journalist

juan williams. >> host: ruben carter, thank you for joining us this wonderful day. how old are you now? >> guest: i will be 74-years-old in may, and that's dr. rubin carter. i have to honor the doctorate degrees. one from australia, went to law school in 2003 and the western university in 2005. so it's dr.. spearman both in australia? in canada? but me read, in your book is called i of the hurricane, might have from darkness to freedom with a speed by nelson mandela and york cocoa authoress tamp class ki. you see my main purpose of writing the book is to share with you that i have discovered

the truth but the love of truth is the spirit of man given where i was and how long i was there this is incredible. i have no business at all been here now. >> guest: that is absolutely correct. >> host: you say you were in jail 40 something years. what do you mean by that? >> guest: i was in jail -- the fact that we are born into a prison actually, when we are born we are complete with all of possibilities in tact but we are also born into a world of sleeping people where he ate and war and death and destruction and inequality remains free so we are actually born into prison.

i was in the prison for the first 40 years of my life until i was able to wake up and get out of that prison and real lives who i really am. >> host: what's come to review are in a second but you were actually incarcerated in prison for about 20 years, 1964 or five? 66. 66 to 85. and the charge was having murdered three people and wounded one in of ar. >> guest: yes, it's just not having murdered somebody. it to be accused of murder is bad enough, but to be accused of being murdered is doubly bad and that was accused of being, a racist murderer. >> host: white racist? >> guest: >> host: was the charge you somehow targeted because of their race? >> guest: because of their race.

because a black bartender had been killed by a white man in another part of town that night they felt that this was revenge motive. but you also have to realize those times at that time in 66 when the country was still segregated, when black folks weren't allowed to eat in restaurants or go to school or ride on certain parts of buses or drink a water fountain or even have equal voting rights at the time. that is what was going on in this country at that time which is a terrible thing. and that is what i was accused of is being a triple racist murderer. >> host: in the book you write about coming up in a household that is violent and difficult across the living room with shotguns. >> guest: my family life was

and violent. the violence was outside. you have to realize that in may i will be 74-years-old. so my mother and father come from a generation where they fought that if a child put his hands or threaten the parents say they've brought you into this world they will take you out of this world as well. that was the type of society. >> host: describe for the people who are watching who might want to read the book what you would be facing your father with a shotgun and he with a shotgun chasing you. >> guest: because i was a very angry young man at the time, and i confronted my brother, my brother james who was a highly successful academic. he was going to harvard, one of the youngest and to graduate from harvard in adversity with a

ph.d. and became the superintendent of schools in boston and i was in and out of reformatory schools doing like you. my father had to sort of truce between which one he's going to support and i confronted my brother because when i can on from the military in 1956i heard that my brother was hanging out with -- and on halloween they would dress up like women but now he was on vacation from harvard university and they were doing the same thing so i confronted my brother about that and we started to fight and of course i beat him up and that's

when my father got involved in this and my father jumped me because of that and i wish my father away and told him don't put his hands on me that i would allow no one to put their hands on me in danger anymore and so my father ran and got his shotgun and i ran and got my shotgun. this is the same thing that happened to marvin gaye and his father and that is why his father shot him, killed him. my father would have killed me as well. >> host: now what's interesting here is you just describe yourself as technically having been in jail for 20 years, 66 to 85. but the violence and the whole world of hatred you describe you say that's been in jail for you for 40 plus years until

discovered for yourself. let me read again from the book. this is an interesting moment because you say you're going to be 74-years-old. you've been in jail but you also write i was a prizefighter at one point, a soldier, a conflict at one point, jailhouse lawyer at one point. it says here you're the executive director of a group that was called association defense of the wrongly convicted at one point. today you're the ceo of the innocent international group. and it says but if i had to choose an epitaph to be on my tombstone it would read just enough. this came because somebody in high school student -- bob dylan wrote a song about you. nelson mandela has written a foreword to this book and i know

nelson mandela loves boxing and remember about how he loves boxing and then he talks about someone like him who was in jail and has come out. six years nelson mandela, bob dylan, even tony bennett, muhammad ali. these people have all known you and it comes time for you to speak about yourself and you say for your epitaph it should be he was just enough to have the courage to stand up for his convictions no matter what problem his actions may have cost him. he was just enough to perform a miracle to wake up to a state the universal prison of sleep to regain his humanity and living he was just enough. just enough. so when people hear this just enough i'm sure they're going to be thinking to themselves just enough to get off or cheesecake or survive. why not to make something bold?

>> guest: universally we are all just enough. that's what that means. we are universally just enough. we have everything we need to wake up and become conscious. that is just enough. pos could you define conscious in the book as loving the world. >> guest: the love of truth is the spirit of man. the love of truth is the spirit of man and a few of the truth, the truth is we are miraculously human beings come regulus teachers with everything already in us to do whatever it is we can possibly do on this earth. whatever we can believe in and conceived in our mind we can do it. in order to weaken you have to defeat that monster within noss

which is personality of who we really are. when we are born we had absolutely nothing to do with the parents we are born to or with their financial situation is or what their religion was, we have nothing to do with that. but we take those things on. we take those things on ourselves live life like a pretty else. but the fact that i went to prison and was able to be taken out of the herd and was able to look and see what the people of humanity is doing and what i was doing i was running with that humanity gave me the opportunity to wake up and say i'm not that.

>> host: use if this happened to you in jail. that's when you woke up. so you have to literally go to jail to wake up. >> guest: to wake up. >> host: a moment ago you described your brother is extremely successful coming out of the same tally situation, but that family situation you had a lot of heat, anger, and use it, you know, i mean, if you had a lot of trust in society. >> guest: absolutely because first of all for the first 18 months of my life, 18 years of my life i couldn't talk. i stuttered bad, very, very badly and people laughed at him -- people laughed at me because of that. i mean it wasn't my fault that i stuttered my father stoddard, his father stuttered and probably my great grandfather, too. it was hereditary but i didn't know that the time.

everybody else could talk, so why couldn't i? so i felt really, really dumb. i felt stupid. so when people laughed at me, if people made fun of me the only sound they would hear in reply would be the sound of my fist whistling through the air, and if you are going to attack someone every time they laugh at you, you better doggone well know how to fight or get beat up pretty bad so that was my situation. i learned how to fight. if i couldn't do anything else like it fight. so that's the reason i went through that. >> host: now this credit anchor that you had let you into first the military. >> guest: but the anger also came -- the bangerter came from the fact that in this country at that time the law of the land,

1856, the dred scott decision, the chief justice of the united states supreme court ruled that black people, as they called us and we call ourselves today for only 3/5 of a human being and we had no right that the right to be a white person must respect all day. that was a society that i grew up in. therefore i was very angry about that, about people thinking based upon the color of my skin one that i had no rights. >> host: you graduated from high school? >> guest: i didn't. i dropped out at eighth grade. >> host: and then you went into the military. and when you got out of the military how did you get into boxing? >> guest: i didn't get into boxing because when i got out of the military i was still angry

and i committed a crime. i did the most diabolical thing in my life that ever done. i snatched a woman's pocketbook and was sent to prison for that, the state prison and when i was in the state prison for that i said well, i'm not coming back here anymore. i'm going to use my talent, my fighting ability in order to make a living. so for those five years that i was in prison, on a train every day. i fought every single day. i knew that i had committed a crime and i knew that that's where i should be, in prison, so i accepted that and i struggled in prison in order to become a good prizefight. so when i got out of prison in 1961, i immediately went into professional fighting, and as,

you know, if you want to become an athlete leader you have to build an image, and what was going on in this country at that time i build an image. my hero and boxing was jet jones. one of the first black heavyweight champions in the world. so i shaved my hair and grew a mustache, all images of defiance, and so that's why i became a hurricane. >> host: now where did that come from? >> guest: that came from a fight in jersey city, new jersey while i was still fighting preliminary fights and i was getting rid of people real quickly in one or two rounds. now i didn't like that name. i didn't like that man at all. i didn't want that name because

there was a hurricane before me, hurricane jackson who was a light heavyweight who couldn't break an egg actually. [laughter] he was a very busy fighter and that's why he was named the hurricane. so i didn't like that, but that was the name that stuck with me to this day. >> host: around the same time we have the young muhammad ali coming on the scene. >> guest: the young cassius clay and i got into it because the state of new york was trying to decide whether they were going to abolish boxing in the state of new york, and mohammad come he was cassius clay at the time, had to testify before the senate committee has the gold medalist of the olympics and i was asked to testify as a former convict who needed boxing in order to make a living and so we were standing outside of the

senate chamber and a little boy walked up and asked cassius clay for his autograph and at that time cassius clay's image was that of carrying a black walking stick and cassius clay -- i told him you are a pawn, you are nothing but the point. and from that moment on, me and cassius didn't get along. he tried to get all of these stablemates which he was an florida, tried to get [inaudible] another one was jimmy who began the heavyweight champion of the world. but this was a thing between

cassius clay and the hurricane, to images clashing together. but after that, after that, when mohammed became mahomet then we became the best of friends. he was one of my strong supporters in getting my case overturned. he would do anything i would ask him to do. i mean, there was because he refused to go to vietnam or to join the military. and so, they gave him a five-year sentence for that which eventually was done away with and so that was the i don't know the word -- >> host: but i notice you mention in your book that the person that help you with your

stuttering was a man who then gave you an islamic name. what was the name he gave you? >> guest: [inaudible] >> host: a kasich you took an arabic name much like muhammad ali but you were never known as that in the ring. >> guest: never known as that in the ring. >> host: you say you connect name often as islam with stuttering. >> guest: i do because he stumbled upon me while we were. rather than just stumbling out of the way this person stopped and made me realize i had a problem. that my inability to talk and my feelings of frustration and sense of low self-esteem were inextricably linked with to read

in many respects he became my teacher, counselor. the first thing he did to me is to help me understand myself. he helped me put my house back in order. he enrolled me in one of the first courses given at the institute of economics in germany. he helped me channel my energy is. he introduced me to boxing as a discipline and as a career not simply as a way of venting my pent-up anger and frustration. so any kind autobiography or any kind of book that deals with my life wouldn't be complete. >> host: so this moment you never become the champion of the world, but you were always the number one contender.

and then comes the episode in new jersey where you are charged and convicted of murdering three and wounding one and to go off to jail. >> guest: that's correct. >> host: and comes to support from bob dylan, all lee and others to get about. >> guest: but you have to understand this. when i went on trial in 1966, 67, we were tried for the death sentence, and this was during those years in america where all the major cities in the country were on fire. we are standing up against it institutionalized hatred demanding equal justice, equals opportunity, equal voting rights, equal jobs, equal housing and equal respect. that was the society i grew up

in that time and when i went on trial live and on trial in all white jury. if they thought for one second that we had murdered those people they would have to a baking, but the only evidence that suggested that we would do such things was to conduct some who were in the area that might breaking into a factory and robbing dead bodies and this one person who was supposed to be the lookout ran out of cigarettes and walked up to the bar and grill which is a block away and as he was walking up to the bar and grill he said that he saw me and john coming around the corner laughing with me carrying a shotgun and john carrying a pistol.

and we couldn't catch him. now this was a little fat boy. he was about 5-foot seven. post, and that was the basis of the conviction? >> guest: that was the basis of the conviction and the reason why that all white jury said that can't be so. >> host: obviously they convicted you. tell me about it being overturned. >> guest: it was overturned because the jury same thing. the jersey state supreme court heard the case where the police promised these contacts $10,000 to stop there lies in court as well as not convicting them for robbing these dead bodies in this barn as well as one of them motel bandit robbed and motels up and down the coast of new jersey and would have gotten 90

years in prison. that is the reason why these two people testified if for no other reason. there was no forensic evidence, no weapons, none of that was found. so the only thing that brought us to court was that to jail house snitches. >> host: and after you were released and went on to a very successful boxing career, but he moved to canada, a country without the death penalty. >> guest: i refuse to live in a country that had the death penalty especially after i just narrowly escaped the death penalty myself. had that jury felt as though i had anything to do with that crime as i said -- >> host: now when you think about this though you continue your boxing career in the united states? >> guest: no, no, no. after lagat of prison this time, no, there was no more what boxing for me.

after i got out of prison this time i was 49-years-old. >> host: back in the 60's? that's what i'm talking about. >> guest: i got out of prison in 1961. >> host: know, you went to prison and 66 and so you had been boxing in the united states until that time. but then you got out and said no more boxing and no more to the united states. now we are on the same path. when you got out and got involved first and foremost this group trying to establish innocence of people, an association that stands for the wrongly convicted. you're the executive director for 13 years. and now you are running this ennis and international. one of the things that struck me in the book is use that anybody involved in prosecuting someone who's innocent should themselves be put in jail. >> guest: that is absolutely correct. you know, the thing that interests me the most is that if

you are not a lawyer or you hadn't gone to school to study the law when it comes to the criminal justice system brain dead. you don't understand the things going on in that courtroom because in that courtroom, the courtroom isn't there to melt out justice. the courtroom isn't there for those things. a court room as their for lawyers to win or lose, to be successful. that is what the court room is all about. no matter even if the defendant or the general public don't understand that. you say here that it's to whitewash things. >> guest: absolutely indeed. >> host: whitewashing but? >> guest: themselves. to white wash themselves. a lawyer is a professional lawyer.

based on side of the story you happen to be coming down on. that's what the courtrooms are really all about. it's not about truth or justice and it's not about those things. it's about success. successful police officers, successful attorneys become judges. a successful judge goes to a high your court. even the united states supreme court. a successful judge in our system of jurisprudence is a careful judge and not necessarily a just a light one that makes sure he is reversed on the appeals. >> host: and you're saying this is about a whitewash. do you think there is justice in the united states? >> guest: sometimes there is justice. sometimes if you have a good lawyer, but sometimes if you have a decent judge -- and there are good lawyers and decent

judges, but not -- not most of the people. it's a job. it's a job for people. >> host: and you think that you were on fairly in prison by this white wash system? >> guest: absolutely. have you ever met a guilty man? >> guest: yes. i've met many guilty. i spent 20 years in prison with guilty people who have done the most horrible things. there are guilty people. there's no question about that but there's also innocent people. and i say to you, sir innocent, there is no place for innocence because if you proclaim your innocent in prison it means there's no chance for parole, no chance for work-release, none of those things can take place if you continue to proclaim your innocence. in fact, the murdered who has confessed in the cell to you

will go home before you do because he admitted his guilt and you are still maintaining your innocence. so i say that in the system like the united states that has more people in prison than any other country in the world their must be in place for innocent in prison. we have two cases right now that innocent international is supporting. one case is david mcauliffe and the new york state. as a 16-year-old teenager he's been in prison for 26 years for a crime he didn't commit. there isn't a shred of evidence, no eyewitnesses, and no forensic evidence or anything like that that in any way places him near this crime and yet we have evidence of other people that haven't done that crime. we have forensic evidence, dna evidence even if other people. >> host: so why can't you get

him out. >> guest: because the judge didn't push to overturn his decision. because the prosecutors are holding on to this conviction. the murder conviction is fuelling the grease of the criminal justice system. convictions and that is why we can't get these. we have to canadian citizens in washington state right now. there's teenagers who were tricked by the canadian mounted police to force confessions and to existence that cleared the way for all whole lot of people. and so now this goes to the criminal justice system false confessions. young teenagers confessing to

professional interrogators who don't stand a chance. they don't stand a chance. >> host: now when you left, the association and the defense of the romilly convicted, it was over a dispute with your board with regard to a canadian prosecutor who was being promoted to be a judge and you thought she had been involved in a wrongful conviction. >> guest: she was involved in a wrongful conviction. the association for the wrongly convicted was brought into existence because of a young man who was convicted of killing a young 9-year-old girl and dna evidence completely exonerated him that he went to trial to times, two times because this one prosecutor was so convinced he was guilty.

>> host: in canada we should say you can be tried twice on the same crime. >> guest: was a red flag for me because i was looking a double jeopardy. the first trial he was acquitted by a jury but because the prosecutor felt as though he was guilty because the charters of ranks have limitations she appealed that to the supreme court of canada and the supreme court overturned the acquittal and he was put that on trial again. but on the second trial this constituted jailhouse snitches, the falsification of evidence, and all of those things in order to get a conviction. and then dna evidence cleared him. and then i set up many nights with his family, the mother, father, the sister, crawling in

with them trying to neutralize their pain and suffering and then when you turn around this the very same prosecutors being elevated. >> host: but he was convicted? >> guest: he was convicted the second time the stock perjury but he wanted to stop this prosecutor from becoming a judge. your board disagreed with you and that led you to resign. >> guest: that led me to resign because anybody who knowingly convict an innocent person of a crime that they didn't come it should be convicted of a crime themselves. what is it not to convict an innocent person? it's not kidnapping confinement, torture and in the case of capital punishment, conspiracy to commit murder.

the family almost went bankrupt but of course he was convicted. he was convicted based upon erroneous testimony. >> host: in your opinion. >> guest: no, no, in the court's opinion. not my opinion, in the court's opinion. because we increase. because the dna evidence completely exonerated him. because of a judge in the outcome. >> guest: when i couldn't stop her from becoming a judge but because our very existence was predicated upon i felt we should protest. >> host: but the board disagreed. >> guest: but the court disagreed. i didn't realize at that time that the board of consisted of 15 lawyers. you know, when we started, the board consisted of ordinary

people. housewives, teachers, things outside the community. you know, the legal community. but over the years because we were so successful in getting people out of prison it became three-quarters. >> host: and you think the lawyers were looking out for the following year. this goes back to what you were describing as a legal system merely being about successful lawyers, successful judges and prosecutors, just as you said, arguing their side of the case. not about truth adjustment and opinion. >> guest: that is absolutely correct. >> host: now let me ask you why are you wearing a hat today? >> guest: well, i was in the military command whether you are in the military or the internal security forces, you should always be under cover when you are armed and i'm always armed, i'm armed with of the love of

truth so i always wear a hat. i'm from the old school where we would address from top to bottom, not just half way. i come from a family of preachers, a lot of preachers. and my father used to dress very well and so i got that from my family. so i stress very well, too. i wear a hat because i am under cover all the time. >> host: now in the book is mentioned that at the 2000 world reconciliation day and australia you are there with nelson mandela, and you said it's quite a celebration between you and mandela because the two of you, people who love boxing, to former presidents, people who spent a good deal of time in jail, you said to each other we are here, we made it. >> guest: that is what he said to me. i was in south africa in 1965

and south africa even existed. >> host: this before you went to jail? >> guest: until my price fighting years. and he had just gone to the island in 1964 and he was in south africa which means you couldn't see his picture and you couldn't even speak his name and my guide it that time was a young 16 year old boy called stevan and he is to bring me to the meetings and i had to listen to what they would say and i felt quite at home because the same thing going on in the apartheid system was going on in the united states under the guide segregation. so i felt at home so i knew about nelson at that time and so when we met, in 2000 in australia we just cracked up.

we just laughed and laughed and laughed and that is when he said we are here man. we need it. there was a wonderful thing. his could you know nelson mandela writes in the foreword to your book that in a way of ruben's spirit was dead. he said in his powerful testimony the book he wrote before this one more than 30 years ago you wrote to describe racism and brutality of the system and of course the united states has more prisoners than any other developed country in the world. but people would say that there is a lot of violence, a lot of crime perpetrated by those who are captured, tried, convicted and imprisoned in this country. >> guest: dak. there's no question about that

because that's what present does. the only thing prison does for anybody is to teach you how to survive in prison. it doesn't teach you how to survive outside. it's the lowest level that a human being can exist on and there is violence, heat, bitterness, that all prisoners about and i think the united states the are the most powerful country in the world, the most -- the richest country in the world. i feel we ought to aspire to be like the netherlands. i was in the netherlands a couple months ago and norway in fact, and norway closed down all of their prisons because they didn't have enough criminals to fill them.

i think that we should aspire to that rather than privatizing prisons where each needs x amount of dollars because when you stop talking about dollars, justice and truth and goodness go out the window but now we are talking about money. >> host: don't you think there's a large criminal class in our country? >> guest: i think those people consider to be criminals have been -- no, i don't think that is the large criminal crime in our society. i think that is a large class of people who have been done wrong in our society but people are not basically criminals. people are basically decent. if you treat people decently they will act decently. >> host: people come from broken homes, people who dropped out of school, disproportionate

number in jail actually do come from single-parent families have a history of violence and their families interaction and oftentimes get involved in criminal activity. >> guest: that's true but that is because of the system they are born into. if you are born into a system of the ghetto where there's bombed out buildings, where your family is living on welfare, you know, and if you are born into the, that's what you're going to grow up with. but if you are born into a society where people respect one another and look at people and say you are my brother, you are my family, we are talking about the human family now. the human family.

>> host: but they are not, you are saying? >> guest: i said if we had that. >> host: they are not? so how do you understand that in the united states you're approaching like 60% of the people in federal and local prisons being black and hispanics. >> guest: that's because there were the drug laws, the rockefeller drug laws that took place in the 1970's where people are being sent to jail. >> host: but even if we are just talking about murder and robbery, this proportion is committed by people of color. >> guest: this is a violent society, my brother. this is a violent society and all of the people who get along in this society feel like they must also be -- of devotee has a gun and a previous high over some kind of drugs. when you have drugs and guns together there's going to be murder, there's going to be violence. >> host: more so than white kids? >> guest: it's not necessarily

the color. >> host: but i'm saying in terms of the numbers of who's in the jail. >> guest: yeah. when i went to prison in 1956 -- >> host: that's when useful the purse? >> guest: that's when i stole the purse. american prison system reflected the general population. for example if italian or irish or a certain percentage of the population, that's the percentage of italians that you will find in prison. so therefore, the prisons were white. the vast majority was light because the black folks only with 15% of the population so we called held in prison because there were no black guards and prison and shepherd's pie on

tuesday and they dealt with the white population. and the black folks caught hell. but in the 1950's when africans and americans were beginning to stand against segregation, beginning to stand up against not been able to eat in restaurants, you know, standing up on the lunch counters, they began allowing the white population to be assimilated back into society and to fill up the prisons with black folks. you have to realize the strategy at that time. the strategy at that time was get all these black folks down here in the south specifically and sit in. if they put us in jail, so what, we will fill the jails up and the society said we want to

throw the jails up that's what we will do and we started looking black folks up. >> host: you think it is just a racist conspiracy. >> guest: it was. >> host: what about today? >> guest: well, people today don't know much about yesterday. >> host: plan asking about today. when we see 60% of the prison population made up of people black and hispanic and you think why is it so much crime occurs in the black community isn't all directed in your case the charge whether you had engaged in a racist murder of three whites in that part in new jersey but you think about the amount of black on black crime, the amount of brown on brown crime, you think about the drive-by shooting, young black men involved in this life style, this criminalization, it affects the culture now. you see the kids walking around with the pans hanging down and the do rags, they look like they just got out of jail and in some cases people talk about going to

jail now as a rite of passage. it's tragic. you are someone who's been through this experience. you see that you have in fact lead a jeal of preconception's the was in your mind to find your spirit and find truth, but what do you say to these young men who are simply on a, you know -- well, it looks like the are on the mass marketing line in terms of the culture behavior, dropping out right into the prison system. >> guest: well that was -- mulken mix is one of my best friends. he was one of my very, very best friends and he used to talk about something like that. he said if ever another holocaust could take place anywhere in the world he could only take place in the united states of america. and he said because look at the

prison system today. why don't you think more people of color could be rounded up and placed in these holding cells and in these prisons and then perhaps eliminated. who would oppose the united states? the united states already opted of the geneva convention. they already got out of the world court. who would oppose the united states? that was one of the tragedy's that we need to address. america needs to address that. >> host: but this is what malcolm was saying that in the early 60's. >> guest: and it's coming to fruition today. >> host: why would he say such a thing? nobody's saying they should kill the people in prison and the holocaust. >> guest: no, no, no, it's true.

nobody is saying that. but you know, one day somebody is going to say what are we going to do with this and developed black humanity who live in our ghettos and inner cities who are the consumers of everything and producers have nothing, what are we going to do with these people? just like down in new orleans after katrina took place. one of the generals down there said we are going to take back this city after the soldiers shot back. somebody's quick to ask that question what are we going to do with this massive humanity that fills our prisons up. >> host: let me ask you something. why is it you wouldn't focus on the individual responsibility, you talk about individual responsibility in your own light about fighting your own demons about overcoming stuttering, about the ability to discover

who you are in truth, to discover use it even in jail you discovered the joy of moment to moment. >> guest: moment to moment. >> host: a kc-y are you than talking about this kind of larger -- some white racist out there sticking of these black people in jail? >> guest: well it's never been individual white racism in georgia, alabama, mississippi, it has always been the government. >> host: so you think barack obama and the u.s. government are putting all these black people -- >> guest: >> host: he's the head of the u.s. government, asking -- >> guest: no, no, don't put that on me. >> host: the government is putting all these black people, you say they are innocent, just -- >> guest: were talking about now. i'm talking about then. >> host: then let's talk about now. why all of these young black people in jail? >> guest: i can't tell you

that because i don't live in this country so i don't know much about what's going on in this country. i got out of this country. i live in canada where people have a different history and therefore different people, but i still understand what's going on in this country. i wouldn't say anything like that. i would say that the power and the glory of human beings are within the individual, not within the collective -- host chris what is your message to the individuals? >> guest: >> host: what is your message then to these individuals -- it doesn't sound like you want to say plan of the white man or the structure or the government. what are you saying? >> guest: i'm saying we gup. >> host: as an individual. >> guest: weakened as an individual. there is a sudanese story that i was told many years ago about

this fat man in the village who happened to be -- who happened to fall asleep one might and the hot caught on fire and the village people rushed to the scene trying to save the man before the house fell to the ground but they couldn't do it because the house was too small and the man was too big to move so they struggled and the village wiseman solve the struggling and said we cannot, just we can up. i say that we have to we could individually in order to save ourselves. wake up. >> host: swedes individual responsibility. >> guest: and that's all we can do is individually. >> host: so that's what you would say to these young people. here you are at 74 having been through all you've been through and you talk about the message

of the book it's about the individual waking up. >> guest: yes it is. it's about the individual, not collected at all. the collective human behavior cannot be conscious. and it will always be violent and war and people struggling against one another. the power and the glory exists with the individual. i found out in prison that when the only thing that we can change in this entire world is ourselves we can't change another single thing. we can't change our mother, we can't change our father, we can't change our lives, or husband or a virtual primm. we can't change our ancestors. we can't change the government and anything but we do have the possibility of changing ourselves, and the merkel site discovered in prison is that

when you change, the world around you also changes. it is in fact the only way the world can change. that's my message is change. you can change. >> host: it's interesting in the book you talk about a story where you are in an elevator and there's some kids in there and one of the kids start smoking dope in the elevator and you start saying what are you doing? are you crazy? you're going to get yourself in trouble. the kid tells you shut the blink of, get lost and to tell him something smart mouthed about i'm your daddy. >> guest: well, the kid -- when he starts telling me who do you think you are, old man? and i looked at him i turned around and looked at these points for the first time. that's what you did when you were 16-years-old.

and here it is coming right back at you. you will not deal with this boy. you will walk away from this job. >> host: you wanted to hit him? >> guest: weld that would have been the first thing to do, can't do that, what away. who do you think you are old man and that is when i responded i'm your daddy, boy, didn't your mother tell you that? i'm going to have a talk with that woman which was the wrong thing to do. the correct thing would have been to keep my mouth shut. >> host: but you couldn't do it. >> host: you realize there's part of you that is spoiling for a rematch. you still have this anchor looking for a fight. it's laid dormant. the hurricane will never go away

from me. redds dormant now and dr. rubin carter exists, but the hurricane is always there and i always have to be careful. i have to stay awake. >> host: so nobody ever talks about? i remember my dad used to train boxers and we used to follow your career and i was just a child but nobody ever not to about. >> guest: it was not down three times in my life. >> host: but not knocked out. >> guest: never knocked out there was a great fighter and i was knocked down twice and those are the only times i've ever been down. >> host: but you never won the velte. >> guest: i never won the velte but i would have won the build and that is the reason why the world boxing council

association for the first time and history awarded me the bulk of the world. >> host: what year was that? >> guest: that was 1991. >> host: so it was an honorable championship. >> guest: just as i have to honor a doctorate degrees. >> host: at about? >> guest: in las vegas. it was great. i am absolutely blessed even with everything in my life i'm blessed to still be alive and to have songs written about me, to have movies written about me and somebody like denzel washington playing that part or books being written about me and i am so blessed. and so i know, i know that as

individuals you can do anything you want to do. i am not the person to say -- i am not a person who can say i can't do this. i tell the people in prison use this time. this time has been imposed upon you. use this time to better yourself. moerenhout to write. you don't know how to read, use this time to learn how to read. you don't have a skill? use this time to learn a skill. this is your opportunity. >> host: one thing that interested me is you don't think much of christianity though. >> guest: i don't think much of any organized religion. ..